which we stood, surrounded by the most fanciful
mouldings, in a substance resembling white marble, and distinguished by
the depth and purity of its waters, might have been the bathing grotto
of a naiad. The groups of combined figures projecting or embossed, by
which the pool is surrounded, are exquisitely elegant and fanciful. A
statuary might catch beautiful hints from the singular and romantic
disposition of those stalactites. There is scarce a form or group on
which active fancy may not trace figures or grotesque ornaments, which
have been gradually moulded in this cavern by the dropping of the
calcareous water hardening into petrifactions. Many of these fine groups
have been injured by the senseless rage for appropriation of recent
tourists; and the grotto has lost, (I am informed,) through the smoke of
torches, something of that vivid silver tint which was originally one of
its chief distinctions. But enough of beauty remains to compensate for
all that may be lost."[92]

But these tales are the _nugae canorae_ of the naturalist. Once more,--Is
there any substratum of truth underlying these fancies? or must they be
unhesitatingly dismissed to the region of fable? Certainly, if there
were not two or three narratives which have an air of veracity and
dependableness, bearing out the belief to some slight extent, I should
not have noticed it here.

How simple and circumstantial is this story told by old Hudson, the
renowned navigator! a man whose narrative is more than usually dry and
destitute of everything like, not only imagination, but even an
imaginative aspect of ordinary circumstances. On the 15th of June, when
in lat. 75 deg., trying to force a passage to the pole near Nova Zembla, he
records the following incident: "This morning one of our company
looking overboard saw a mermaid; and calling up some of the company to
see her, one more came up, and by that time she was come close to the
ship's side, looking earnestly on the men. A little after, a sea came
and overturned her. From the navel upward, her back and breasts were
like a woman's, as they say that saw her; her body as big as one of us;
her skin very white; and long hair hanging down behind, of colour black.
In her going down they saw her tail, which was like the tail of a
porpoise, and speckled like a mackerel. Their names that saw her were
Thomas Hilles and Robert Rayner."[93]

Whatever explanation be attempted of this apparition, the ordinary
resour